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Thursday, May 3, 2012

Readers' Theater and a Little Math

We have been thinking a lot about caterpillars and
butterflies at our house.We have been
watching caterpillars turn into chrysalis and are waiting for them to emerge as
butterflies.

While waiting I decided to do a Readers’ Theater with the
girls using the book The Very HungryCaterpillar by Eric Carle.

First I downloaded masks from Masketeers.com. Ian Nicholls
from Masketeers.com let me try out his downloadable masks.There are tons of animal masks to choose from
and can be used in so many different ways.

The masks come in two
versions:already colored and black and
white coloring book style.I printed out
the caterpillar and the butterfly in the coloring book style.

The girls colored them and cut them out.Instead of making them into masks, we glued popsicle
sticks to the back of each one and made puppets.

The girls loved the butterflies on the sticks because they
could make them fly and flap their wings.

Then while I read The Very Hungry Caterpillar, the girls
acted out the story.

We used colored buttons to represent all the fruit and food
the caterpillar eats during the week.We
put the buttons in a graph.At the end I
had the girls count how much fruit and food the caterpillar had eaten through.

When we were done with the story the girls had fun running
around the yard making their butterflies fly and land on flowers.

My kids are past the Very Hungry Caterpillar stage. sigh . . . I'd make these puppets and try this out for sure.I hope some parents and teachers try out this activity you shared. The girls looked like they had fun.